


Unchanged

by Mareel



Series: Without Change [2]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Family, Future Fic, M/M, Romance, Sailing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 18:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mareel/pseuds/Mareel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A safe harbor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unchanged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kayjayuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayjayuu/gifts).



> This is in canon with [Without Change](http://www.reocities.com/bdebpr/WithoutChange4.html) (written midway through the second season of _Enterprise_ and AU to parts of later canon). Here, ten years later, Jonathan and Malcolm have an established relationship. This is Jonathan's voice. It was written in 2012 for kayjayuu for her birthday.

 

_The ceaseless surge_  
_Listen to the surge of the sea_  
_The thunder of the ocean_  
_As I heard it when I was a child_

 

The rain drums steadily on the deck above us, and I can feel the effects of the wind picking up, though I don’t actually hear it. The cabin is snug; it’s good that we found a safe moorage last night when we saw the storm coming. 

_Eala Bhan_ has been well maintained in the years since Malcolm inherited her from his grandmother. We’ve left her in the hands of the dockmaster who’d been caring for the old wooden sailboat – he gets to hire her out for day sails and we don’t have to worry about upkeep while we’re out on _Enterprise_. 

Whenever we’re back on Earth, we try to make time for a trip to the Isle of Skye for a sail… always managing to spend a night on board as a remembrance of when we first found our way to one another. It’s a way to touch again the joy of those moments and renew our promises, spoken and wordless.

But this is the first time we’ve had a chance to take an extended trip together. _Enterprise_ is undergoing a major refit and neither of us is needed underfoot during the first part of that, much as we’d like to supervise it personally. 

We’ve had two days of moderately good weather, but it looks like we’re in for a cold rainy spell. I’m rummaging through one of the storage lockers in search of a spare blanket when I notice that there’s something else in there with the blankets. Curious, I pull out a pair of fingerless Aran knit gloves. They’re obviously well-worn, with a few snags here and there. Both gloves show signs of having been mended at least once, and the leather palms are scuffed and worn to softness. They were never meant for large hands and I wonder aloud whose they were. 

“Malcolm, do you remember these?”

He smiles as he picks one up and tries, without much success, to slip his hand into it. 

“I might be able to squeeze into them, but it would be a tight fit.”

“Were those your sister’s gloves? Or maybe your grandmother’s?” I never knew the woman, but imagined her as being of small frame, perhaps a little shorter than Malcolm. 

He shakes his head, turning the glove in his hand, running his fingertips over the worn leather, seemingly lost in memory or thought. 

“No, they were mine when I was about fifteen. She knitted them for me one year when I crewed for her on the _Eala Bhan_. It had to have been the coldest, wettest, bloody excuse for summer on record, but she wouldn’t hear of canceling a sail with her grandson.”

I laugh, gesturing toward the porthole and the weather outside. “In other words, a summer like this?”

Malcolm nods, sitting down beside me on the berth. “It’s not like I didn’t have perfectly good sailing gloves already, but somehow I got into the habit of wearing the ones she’d made me. Perhaps because my father had outfitted me with the other ones, along with the rest of my kit – the best he could buy of course. It appears I nearly wore these out, and she repaired and reinforced them a time or two, as I recall.”

I take his hand, squeezing it gently. “Sounds like she took good care of you.”

“She did. And Maddy and I both adored her.”

He turned his hand in mine, threading our fingers together. “I can’t believe she kept these here… for all these years."

“Maybe she knew you’d be back for them… someday.”

After some thought, he nods agreement. “Maybe so… you know how much I dislike the open water, yet I sailed with her every summer. Even when the rest of the family had moved to Malaysia and didn’t come back up to Skye every year, I still did.”

“Your father must have thought it was good for you.”

Malcolm’s voice holds hints of amusement. “I think my father still cherished some hope that she’d make a proper sailor of me, which would support his ambitions for me in the Royal Navy. He never did understand that it wasn’t the sailing I came up here for. I did that because I wanted to spend time with my Nan and _she_ wanted to sail.” 

“I’m thinking maybe she was a far better teacher for you than you father ever would have been. You trusted her, it seems.”

Malcolm has grown quiet, picking up the gloves again, turning them in his hands, his fingertip slowly tracing the knitted cables. “Yes, I guess I did at that. And when I mishandled the lines or made a mess of things, she’d show me the right way to do it, but didn’t fly off about how incompetent I was.” 

“It sounds like she did just the opposite, love… made you feel confident and accomplished, trusting you to crew for her even in bad weather. Did she know how frightening you found the open water?”

There is a long pause before he answers. The rain is sheeting across the porthole now, and the boat is rocking more strongly as the wind picks up. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think I ever told her about it… maybe she guessed.”

He lifts his face, meeting my eyes. “I think you’re the only person I’ve ever really admitted it to… about the aquaphobia.”

“You never told your parents? Your father?”

He shakes his head and I gather him closer.

“No. He wouldn’t have believed me… he was convinced by that point that I was just a stubborn git hell-bent on defying him.”

I catch the hint of a smirk before he continues. “Maybe he was partly right, but I wasn’t inclined to share any personal details with him. He could believe what he liked.”

Drawing the blanket over us both, I lean back against the bulkhead, settling Malcolm’s head against my shoulder.

“Yet you told me about it so matter-of-factly… your fear of drowning… when you were pinned to the hull in that minefield. You couldn’t tell me about any of your interests or hobbies, but you shared your deepest fear.”

He lifts his head, meeting my eyes. “I owed you the truth. And I trusted you with it. I don’t know why exactly, except I knew that regardless of whether I lived or died out there, the secret was safe. You’ve a way of inspiring that kind of trust, Jonathan Archer. You always have.”

There’s nothing I can say, or need to say. We both know how long it took for what began that day to mature into the love we admitted to each other on this boat ten years ago tonight. 

I simply kiss him and let the moment be the start of our celebration.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics quoted are from _An ataireachd ard_ \-  a poem by Domhnull Iain Ruaidh (sung by Karen Matheson)


End file.
